Former Real Madrid player, Jorge Valdano has tipped Raul Gonzalez Blanco to become of the best coaches in the world in his career.
Valdano, who went through all the ranks at the Los Blancos; from becoming a player to coaching to becoming a director believes the former skipper is bound to have a great coaching career.
Raul currently heads Madrid’s Castilla side and was the brain behind the youth side winning the UEFA Youth League for the first time, but he is seen as one to have a better career.
“He’s going to be one of the best ever,” Valdano told La Galerna. “He transmits the same demands he has for himself. He has something that the great coaches have. [Pep] Guardiola, [Jose] Mourinho, [Diego] Simeone all have it: that unstoppable energy.
“If he was here, we wouldn’t get a word in. He’s got 300 academy players in his head. Ask him anything about the younger players. That bodes well. I have a lot of belief in him as a coach.”
Both Valdano and Raul know each other quite well considering it was the former who gave the latter his maiden appearance as a player during his time as the manger of the team in 1994.
“He made his debut with me in a friendly in Oviedo. Before the game, they were doing a rondo,” recalled Valdano. “Raul lost the ball but he thought that [Michael] Laudrup had given him a bad pass. ‘You’re in, kid’ the Dane told him. ‘No, I’m not going in…I didn’t lose it.’
“He was fierce. There was a training session where an older player hacked him down and he got up, asked for the ball straight away and took on the same player, as if to say ‘this is how much I fear I have of you’.”
Raul Gonzalez Blanco has been linked to the first team job on a couple of occasions but the Spaniard is yet to be given the chance.
